Page 136 of What Boys Learn

“I don’t see any trailer—or car.”

“Good.”

I hung up and relayed the conversation to Robert.

“You should have asked what kind of trailer she meant. Are we talking camper trailer, ATV trailer . . . ?”

I called back and got a voicemail. Crossing my arms, I looked up and down the road for anyone to talk to. The grand houses were spaced far apart, some newer, some older. “I just don’t see Curtis Campbell going camping or offroading. This was a waste of time. We should have started with the nursing homes, instead.”

In my purse, Benjamin’s phone rang once, then stopped. I just missed it.

“Someone was trying to reach him,” I said, showing Robert. I googled the area code. “Someone who lives in central Wisconsin.”

“Someone who doesn’t realize he doesn’t have his phone.”

“So, not Curtis then.”

“Maybe someone he met?”

It felt like good news. If someone was trying to call Benjamin in central Wisconsin, then chances were that’s where he was—not Mexico or Canada, not Florida or California. But who would be calling him?

Robert and I exchanged looks, clueless. Afternoon was mellowing, low purple clouds spreading like a bruise above the lake. Robert’s friend Pete hadn’t been able to find us the name of Dr. Campbell Senior’s nursing home.

“I see at least a dozen facilities in the area,” Robert said. “Independent, assisted, downtown, hinterlands . . .”

“He has money—or he used to. Let’s pick the nicest one and start there.”

“What makes a nursing home nice?”

“I don’t know. The view?”

“We were a pair, he and I,” Mattathias Campbell Sr. said a half hour later, ladling another spoonful of creamy leek soup into his mouth.

Robert pointed at the old man’s shirtfront. “You got some there.”

Outside the nursing home’s dining room window, past the lakeside streets of downtown Fond du Lac, Lake Winnebago shimmered in golden light. It had been a lucky guess.

When Campbell Sr. reached a shaking hand toward me, I thought he was following Robert’s suggestion, asking me to pass him a cloth napkin, but he was only gesturing for a wicker basket filled with plastic-wrapped Saltine crackers. I was about to slide one packet over to him when a staff member of the nursing home came toward us. “Woah, woah. Not for him. He chokes. You doing okay, Mr. Campbell?”

Over a mouthful of lumpy soup, he said, “Dr. Campbell.”

“I apologize.Dr. Campbell.”

Meanwhile, another elderly man at the opposite end of the round tablecloth-covered table finished his soup and stared out into space. He didn’t talk, but he was an excellent chewer. A dozen bits of cracker plastic littered his side of the table.

The room held about ten tables in all, each one occupied by two, three, or four elderly people. It wasn’t a bad-looking place, and instead of giving us a hard time at the front desk, as I’d expected, they’d welcomed us almost too enthusiastically, explaining that Dr. Campbell Sr. received few visitors.

Not even his son?

Not lately.

When we’d introduced ourselves to Dr. Campbell himself and said we’d both been his patients, he’d beamed, eager to tell every staff member who came by.Look how well they’re doing. My patients. See that?

“You were saying?” I jogged his memory. “About your son?”

“He doesn’t come by as much, now that he’s married.”

No point in explaining that Curtis’s wife and daughter were dead.